Estimation of excess number of childhood leukemia cases due to exposure to residential ELF magnetic fields in Japan

24 Mar 2013

Purpose:

In the Environmental Health Criteria No. 238 published in 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) denied a causal relationship between exposure to extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields and childhood leukemia based on available evidences and stated that from a global perspective even if there were the causal relationship, the impact of ELF magnetic field exposure on public health would be limited.
In this context, we estimated excess number of childhood leukemia cases due to exposure to ELF magnetic fields under the hypothesis that such a causal relationship exists.

Conclusion:

If there were the causal relationship, it was estimated that there would be 3.9 cases of childhood leukemia per year caused by ELF magnetic fields exposure.
Additionally, no relationship was observed between morbidity rate of childhood leukemia and consumption of electric power during the past 33 years.